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By:

Bhalchandra Chorghade

11 August 2025 at 1:54:18 pm

Healing Beyond the Clinic

Dr Kirti Samudra “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” This thought by Mother Teresa finds reflection in the life of Panvel-based diabetologist Dr Kirti Samudra, who has spent decades caring not only for her family but also thousands of patients who see her as their guide. As we mark International Women’s Day, stories like hers remind us that women of substance often shape society quietly through compassion, resilience and dedication. Doctor, mother, homemaker,...

Healing Beyond the Clinic

Dr Kirti Samudra “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” This thought by Mother Teresa finds reflection in the life of Panvel-based diabetologist Dr Kirti Samudra, who has spent decades caring not only for her family but also thousands of patients who see her as their guide. As we mark International Women’s Day, stories like hers remind us that women of substance often shape society quietly through compassion, resilience and dedication. Doctor, mother, homemaker, mentor and philanthropist — Dr Samudra has balanced many roles with commitment. While she manages a busy medical practice, her deeper calling has always been service. For her, medicine is not merely a profession but a responsibility towards the people who depend on her guidance. Nagpur to Panvel Born and raised in Nagpur, Dr Samudra completed her medical education there before moving to Mumbai in search of better opportunities. The early years were challenging. With determination, she and her husband Girish Samudra, an entrepreneur involved in underwater pipeline projects, chose to build their life in Panvel. At a time when the town was still developing and healthcare awareness was limited, she decided to make it both her workplace and home. What began with modest resources gradually grew into a trusted medical practice built on long-standing relationships with patients. Fighting Diabetes Recognising the growing threat of diabetes, Dr Samudra dedicated her career to treating and educating patients about the disease. Over the years, she has registered nearly 30,000 patients from Panvel and nearby areas. Yet she believes treatment alone is not enough. “Diabetes is a lifelong disease. Medicines are important, but patient education is equally critical. If people understand the condition, they can manage it better and prevent complications,” she says. For more than 27 years, she has organised an Annual Patients’ Education Programme, offering diagnostic tests at concessional rates and sessions on lifestyle management. Family, Practice With her husband frequently travelling for business, much of the responsibility of raising their two children fell on Dr Samudra. Instead of expanding her practice aggressively, she kept it close to home and adjusted her OPD timings around her children’s schedules. “It was not easy,” she recalls, “but I wanted to fulfil my responsibilities as a mother while continuing to serve my patients.” Beyond Medicine Today, Dr Samudra also devotes time to social initiatives through the Bharat Vikas Parishad, where she serves as Regional Head. Her projects include  Plastic Mukta Vasundhara , which promotes reduced use of single-use plastic, and  Sainik Ho Tumchyasathi , an initiative that sends Diwali  faral  (snack hamper) to Indian soldiers posted at the borders. Last year alone, 15,000 boxes were sent to troops. Despite decades of service, she measures success not in wealth but in goodwill. “I may not have earned huge money,” she says, “but I have earned immense love and respect from my patients. That is something I will always be grateful for.”

Strongman in Shackles

As Jair Bolsonaro faces trial, Brazil tests its fragile democratic guardrails against the ghosts of military rule and foreign meddling.

It is a fall from grace that evokes Latin America's long and haunted history of caudillos. Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, the brash ex-army captain who once longed for the glory days of military dictatorship, now finds himself encumbered by an electronic ankle monitor, silenced on social media and increasingly cornered by the law. Last week, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered these unprecedented restrictions, citing credible fears that Bolsonaro, accused of plotting a coup to overturn his 2022 electoral defeat, might flee the country.


Bolsonaro’s legal woes are staggering in their breadth and gravity. Federal prosecutors have charged him with leading an armed criminal conspiracy to violently overthrow democratic order and, alarmingly, with planning to assassinate Supreme Court justices and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his leftist nemesis. This alleged plot, authorities say, was hatched as early as 2021 and climaxed with the January 2023 insurrection in which Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace in an eerie echo of the January 6 riot in Washington two years earlier.


The charges reach beyond Brazil’s borders. Authorities have cited a series of social media posts and diplomatic maneuvers aimed at enlisting the United States, specifically Donald Trump’s inner circle, in pressuring the Brazilian judiciary. The alleged conduit being Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a federal congressman and staunch Trump ally. Their efforts may have borne fruit. Last week, the U.S. State Department imposed visa restrictions on unnamed Brazilian judicial officials, a move swiftly condemned by Lula as “unacceptable interference.” Trump, meanwhile, decried Bolsonaro’s trial as a “witch hunt” while tying Brazil’s trade privileges to the fate of his ideological twin.


That Bolsonaro is on trial at all speaks volumes about the resilience and the vulnerability of Brazilian democracy. The country’s institutions, long plagued by impunity and elite impunity, have shown surprising mettle in prosecuting a former head of state. Yet the road to this moment has been paved with blood and betrayal. Brazil’s 21-year military dictatorship, which ended in 1985, never fully reckoned with its crimes. Unlike Argentina or Chile, it held no truth commission until much later, and many of its torturers lived out their days untouched. Bolsonaro has long glorified that era, once remarking that the dictatorship’s mistake was to “torture but not kill.”


In that context, his trial is a national reckoning. The case hinges not just on proving Bolsonaro’s hand in the failed putsch but on confronting the persistent seduction of authoritarianism in Brazilian political life. This seduction runs deep. Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 riding a wave of anti-establishment fury, nostalgia for order and evangelical fervour. His reign saw the hollowing out of environmental protections, a calamitous COVID-19 response and the systematic undermining of the electoral system. Yet he retains a fierce following, especially among the military, police and religious conservatives.


Some of his supporters have already recast his prosecution as martyrdom. The far-right ex-leader has been banned from standing in elections until 2030, yet his political relevance lingers and with it, the risk of further instability.


How the trial unfolds could shape Brazil’s democracy for decades. The Supreme Court justices are expected to rule before year’s end. A conviction on coup-plotting alone could bring up to 12 years in prison. Yet experts warn that Bolsonaro could be detained sooner if authorities deem it necessary to prevent disruption or flight.


The parallels with Trump are striking - two demagogues who smeared elections they lost, fanned mobs into violence, and now face prosecution. Yet there is one crucial difference: Brazil, for all its turbulence, may be ahead in holding its strongman accountable. Whether that accountability leads to healing or further polarization depends on whether the institutions can withstand both pressure from abroad and fury at home.


In the end, Bolsonaro’s trial is a referendum on whether Brazil can finally put its authoritarian past to rest or whether, like its Amazon forests, the gains of democracy can still be razed with impunity.

 

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